Social Good

5 illuminating things I learned at an all-women's college

More than a century ago, women's colleges defied the notion that a rigorous education should only be available to men.

Today, young women are actually more likely to graduate from college than men, and the state of gender equality is discussed without hesitation — from campaigns like Lean In and HeforShe to pop culture expressions of feminism (think Beyonce). In fact, some young women choosing colleges don't see a reason for single-sex higher education.

That much is reflected in the statistics. Fifty years ago, there were 230 women’s colleges in the United States. Less than 50 of those have survived. While many colleges face the same challenging trend of declining enrollment, those schools haven't eliminated male students as a potential future source of income.

Women's colleges fight to remain solvent and relevant. Some have been shuttered because of bleak finances; others debate whether to admit transgender students.

The latest casualty is Sweet Briar College. In February, the board of directors of the 114-year-old Virginia school voted to close the college, citing "insurmountable financial challenges." Since then, students and alumnae have lobbied to save it.

To better understand the modern experience at a woman's college, I visited Mills College in Oakland, California. [Ed: The author graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, which was founded as an all-women's college but went co-ed in 1969.]

Founded in 1852, Mills is the oldest women's college west of the Rockies. Their students feel so passionately about the school's mission that they went on strike in 1990 when the school's trustees voted to admit men as undergraduates. The students overturned the trustees' decision. Even current undergrads are visibly proud of their school's hard-won identity.

Here is what I learned by spending a day at Mills.

1. People have strange ideas about women’s colleges.

Eva Steward knows what you're thinking. The cheerful music major is an "admissions ambassador" for Mills, and leads parents and students on tours of the 135-acre campus.

Today, she is rattling off facts and figures about the school while piloting a golf cart.

Steward has heard just about every question from students and parents, but knows which one you secretly want to ask: "Will Mills turn my daughter into a lesbian?"

"Um, no," Steward says, and then adds, "Not unless she already is and you just don't know."

The questions she fields on tours hint at people's preconceptions — and possible fears — about what it means to attend a women's college. Other popular inquiries include: "Are there ever men on campus? Does going to Mills automatically make you a feminist?"

Mills College in Oakland, California, is one of the oldest all-women's colleges in the U.S.

Image: MARTIN SUNDBERG / MILLS COLLEGE

Steward reassures nervous parents that their daughters won't be joining some kind of ideological cult by attending Mills. Before transferring to Mills as a sophomore, Steward was skeptical about women's colleges herself.

"I had just created that negative stigma in my mind that so many people have, which is so false," she says. "I didn't think I would love women's colleges, but now I'm a big advocate."

Steward worried about cattiness, but what she found instead is a word I hear again and again during my visit: community.

"At a women’s college," she says, "it’s about being inclusive and it’s about being more of a community."

2. No, it doesn’t matter that there aren’t male students.

Mills students regularly encounter some form of concern-trolling because the undergraduate program doesn't include students who were born as or identify as male. (The student body does include transgender men, and the graduate degree programs are co-ed.)

This version of the women's college forgets that men are regularly seen on campus in roles as varied as librarian, administrator and professor. No women's college is an island, after all.

A science course at Mills College.

Yet, friends, relatives or even strangers often express alarm to Mills students about the absence of men at a women's college.

Over lunch in the school's cafeteria, Jessica Parlin, a senior majoring in mathematics, tells me the single-sex environment encourages women to express themselves freely. Parlin says she doesn't encounter the negative effects of a co-ed classroom, which research shows, can include frequent interruptions, men called on first and men speaking more frequently.

"Everyone always assumes...'Oh, I don't like males,'" she says. "It's just like, no! This is an even playing field without having that gender bias."

Critics argue that women's colleges turn its students into delicate flowers who wilt when challenged in a co-ed workplace, but none of the women I met seemed delicate. They were assertive and confident, and studies show they indeed know how to compete upon graduating. Alumnae of women's colleges report higher levels of self-esteem and are more likely than graduates of co-ed colleges to enter medical school and earn doctorate degrees.

Sophia Padilla, a freshman on Mills' rowing team, says the obsession over men — or the lack thereof — reflects entrenched beliefs about gender roles.

"I don't think people can imagine a world where women aren't around men doing something for men," she says. "Honestly, what is a woman without a man?"

3. Yes, students are politically correct.

The Mills student is serious about her community, and ensuring that people who might normally feel excluded are welcomed as a matter of policy.

There are plans to replace traditional bathroom signs with ones that don't show explicitly male or female symbols. It's also normal for students to request peers and professors call them by a different gender pronoun than their given sex, or even to use the pronoun "they."

Image: MYDOORSIGN.COM

So-called safe spaces are important. People of color and their "allies" can gather in the Solidarity Lounge. Commuters and "resumers," or students ages 23 and older, also have their own lounge, as do parents.

"It just creates a community for those students so nobody feels they're out of place here," Steward tells me.

That ethos extends to one of the most controversial topics on women's college campuses today: whether to admit transgender students. Mills was in fact the first women's college in the U.S. to officially make transgender students eligible for admission, a policy it adopted in May 2014.

Brian O’Rourke, vice president for enrollment management, says the decision "reaffirms" the school's identity as a women's college.

"I think the purpose of women's colleges continues, in my opinion, to question traditional gender roles and traditional gender identity," he says. "Mills hasn't tried to define what it means to be a woman. Mills is trying to define what it means for our identity as a women's college to continue to develop an environment that challenges traditional gender roles."

The practice wasn't new to the campus; the administration just hadn't made it official. O'Rourke says the college had previously received inquiries from a handful of transgender people each year asking if they qualified for admission.

Mills College becomes first women’s college in US to declare acceptance of applications from “self-identified women” http://t.co/JmiubqWGKW

That inclusivity is a buzzword second only to community says a lot about the type of conversations and interactions Mills students desire. Students are politically correct, to be sure, but perhaps not in the way that caricatures of liberal college campuses might have you believe.

Tess Filbeck Bates, a marketing assistant for the college and a senior majoring in economics, tells me, for example, that using the right "PGP" (personal gender pronoun) is really a common sense courtesy.

"At least set yourself up for success with the rule of respect," she says. "If you’re not going to call someone by their PGP, understand that it’s really going to reflect more on you."

4. You will be inspired to learn about math and science.

"I was actually downstairs working in the vertebrate collection," says junior Lauren Burke. "We have so many birds! Some of them are more than 100 years old."

Burke is a student in assistant professor Sarah Swope's biology class. She is photographing, cataloguing and digitizing the birds.

"That is so cool!" says Devon Thurmston.

This is the contagious essence of Swope's class: young women geeking out on science.

The six students in class today are all directly involved in scientific research. Aside from the birds, projects include studying a 170-year-old archive of pressed native flowers and collecting data on the rare Tiburon mariposa lily, which grows only on a nearby coastal peninsula.

Such opportunities are rarely afforded to undergraduate students, and the budding scientists acknowledge that a co-ed setting might have discouraged them from pursuing biology in the first place.

"I have more opportunity to be wrong and not feel like that is the defining moment for me in a classroom," says Thurmston.

Swope, who previously taught as a Ph.D. student at U.C. Santa Cruz, says she was surprised at the difference between teaching a single-sex class versus a co-ed one.

"In a co-ed classroom, women feel a little bit like they’re still trying to prove they belong there, in the sciences," she says. "Being free of that, people tend to be a lot more verbal. The conversation itself tends to be a lot more interesting and dynamic, because no one is trying to be right. And no one is afraid of being wrong."

This effect is real, according to research. Students who attend a women's college are more likely to graduate with math and science majors than their female peers at co-ed schools.

5. There is a lot of finding your voice.

When I later ask Mills President Alecia A. DeCoudreaux, herself a graduate of Wellesley College, to explain why women's colleges are necessary in the 21st century, she provides an answer not unlike what I've heard all day: "It is essential for students to come to a place like Mills if they are students who want to ensure that once they arrive their voice will be heard..."

Finding and hearing one's voice is the quintessential Mills experience.

Susan Wang, a professor of computer science, tells me she coaxes sometimes shy students to participate more actively in class. Wang calls them by name and asks their opinion about how to solve problems.

"If they didn't have a voice," she says, "they gain their voice through this process."

The freely-speaking students at Mills seem both relieved and liberated. Though they might have you believe the campus is idyllic in every way, there are still conflicts and tussles over whose idea is the strongest; personalities still clash.

Yet, this transpires without the undue influence of sexism or gender bias.

Eva Steward, the admissions ambassador, sums up this dynamic best: "It creates a space where you don't have to apologize for being a woman, or who you are in general."

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.